Three new companies opened up shop quietly in Mobile recently, signaling both the growth of the Port City’s engineering sector and a new approach to tenant recruitment at Mobile Aeroplex at Brookley.
The global engineering services companies – Sonovision, Inter-Informatics and AKKA Technologies – currently share about 3,500-square-feet of space on the first floor of a 14,000-square-foot building adjacent to roughly 100,000 unoccupied square feet of operational warehouse space that combined comprise 2203 Perimeter Road.
By design, the newest arrivals work alongside veteran tenant Safran Engineering, with all four operations servicing the Airbus Engineering Center on the far side of the aeroplex campus.
“We have more than enough room to shift them around to larger and more-developed spaces once they reach critical mass, but for right now, 2203 is a perfectly functioning engineering incubator, and it’s a model we know we can replicate,” Roger Wehner, the Mobile Airport Authority’s executive director, said.
Although the three newest arrivals employ only five people between them at the moment, those numbers are expected to grow as local demand for their international engineering expertise increases. In the interim, the operations have access to a shared reception area, office equipment and conference room to help control overhead and encourage growth, Wehner said.
Meanwhile, the unique mix of adjacent industrial and office space lends itself perfectly to future recruitment of either several mid-sized tenants or potentially a mega-tenant interested in leasing both 50,000-square-foot operational floor spaces, Wehner said.
The office building’s other two current tenants include Hoar Program Management and Dunn Building Co., both of which currently support the $600 million Airbus A320 final assembly line nearing completion nearby, with HPM occupying its own 3,500-square-foot, first-floor suite. An additional 7,000 square feet remains undeveloped but available for near-immediate use on the second floor.
“This is just one site, but it’s exciting to see synergies like what’s developed at 2203 take hold and know that these companies – these international companies with a global reach – are talking to one another and working together to support and improve upon the work that’s already being done (at the aeroplex) and the work that hasn’t even been thought of yet,” Wehner said.
May 22, 2015
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